


Ain't No Haint Gonna Run Me Off

by FleetSparrow



Category: Batman (Comics)
Genre: Gen, Ghosts, Haunted Houses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2020-10-04
Packaged: 2021-03-08 00:01:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,512
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26806264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FleetSparrow/pseuds/FleetSparrow
Summary: Dick and Jason report to a strange call at the old Finger mansion.Things get spooky.
Relationships: Dick Grayson & Jason Todd
Comments: 3
Kudos: 18
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Ain't No Haint Gonna Run Me Off

**Author's Note:**

  * For [temporalheadache](https://archiveofourown.org/users/temporalheadache/gifts).



They’d been on patrol for three hours now, and Dick was still humming the same damn song.

If he hadn’t promised Bruce he wasn’t killing anymore, Jason would’ve murdered Dick about ten times already.

“Would you hum _literally_ anything else?” he finally snapped.

Dick shrugged and grinned at him. “No.”

“That’s one, Dick,” Jason said.

Dick just beamed and leapt out into the night.

As it was going on three in the morning, they got a call over the police scanner about a break in at the old Finger place. Dick and Jason were the closest to it, so they went over.

The mansion was dark and crumbling as they made their way onto the property. It was one of the first mansions built in the Bristol area, out on the far side where the land turned into swamp. No one else had been willing to build there, and when the Fingers died out, the house was left alone to rot.

“I don’t see any lights, do you?” Dick asked, as they headed into the house.

“No. Why?”

“There’s no moon out tonight. The house must be pitch dark,” Dick said, switching his lenses to night vision. “Why no flashlight? I didn’t see a single glow through the windows.”

“Maybe they’re on the other side of the house,” Jason said.

“Maybe,” Dick said, unconvinced.

They split up once inside the mansion, Dick taking the downstairs while Jason took the upstairs. Night vision was telling him nothing, so Dick turned on his thermal camera. There were more cold spots than hot bodies.

“Downstairs looks clean,” Dick said, checking through the dining room. “Heading to the kitchen now. It’s the last room left.”

The kitchen was as cold as the rest of the rooms. No sign of a robber here.

“What’s your status?” Dick asked, turning back to the door of the dining room. “Hood?”

A knife embedded itself into the doorway beside Dick’s head. Dick whirled around, eskrimas at the ready, but there was nobody there.

“Hood. Someone just threw a knife at me. Hood, do you copy?”

No reply.

Dick noticed a trapdoor in the floor on the other side of the room. “I think I know where they’re hiding. I’m going down into the root cellar. I’ll call if I need backup.”

He carefully opened the door, his night vision goggles showing nothing but stairs. Slowly, he crept down, watchful for any attacker. Whoever threw the knife at him had the advantage.

The cellar was bare. Empty shelves with broken jars were lined up along the walls, but otherwise, nothing was down there. Frowning, Dick turned to go back up the stairs.

The trapdoor slammed shut.

Dick hopped up the stairs as a heavy dragging sound came from above. He hit the door with his upper arm and shoulder, but it held firm. Someone had trapped him down there in the dark.

“Red Hood, I need backup,” Dick said. “Thief is in the kitchen. They just blocked the trapdoor and I can’t get it to budge.”

No reply.

“Red Hood, do you read?”

Nothing.

“Hood?” Dick asked again, a note of panic slipping into his voice.

Air suddenly rushed by him, cold and musty, making him shiver. Someone or some thing was down here, Dick could feel it. He couldn’t see anything but shelves and darkness.

Dick sat down on the floor and waited.

* * *

Jason grumbled as he went through the multiple rooms of the upstairs. Thankfully, the house wasn’t as big as Wayne Manor, or they’d be here all night. At least right now he was away from Dick’s humming.

“This is a damn goose chase,” he muttered, coming out of yet another bedroom. He’d searched everywhere and unless this perp was invisible or a master of stealth, they were the only ones here.

He started to head back down the hall when something in the ceiling caught his eye. It was a closed door, probably leading up to the attic.

Well, if _he_ was going to rob a spooky old house and hide when people showed up, that’s where Jason would go, too.

He found the cord for the door and pulled on it. The door slid back and a set of wooden stairs came down to the ground. That was handy.

Jason pulled out his gun and climbed the stairs.

There was nobody in the attic but him, but the attic was filled with abandoned trunks and rotting wooden boxes. Jason peeked inside a human-sized trunk. Nothing.

“This is a waste of time,” he said.

The door to the attic slammed shut.

Jason nearly jumped out of his skin, immediately glad Dick wasn’t there to see that. He examined the door; there seemed to be no way to open it from the inside.

“Nightwing. Someone just shut the attic door. Can you get your ass up here and help?”

No response.

“Nightwing, I mean it. Get up here.”

Still nothing.

Now that he thought about it, he hadn’t heard a peep from Dick since they’d split up. That wasn’t like him at all.

“Nightwing, respond now!”

Silence.

Well, shit.

Jason tried his best to kick through the sliding door, but it was no good. That thing was more solid than it looked.

He sat down on top of one of the more sturdy trunks and thought.

* * *

Dick didn’t know how long he’d been down in the cellar, but suddenly, he heard Jason call to him from the kitchen.

“Down here!” Dick yelled back. He climbed the stairs again. “Under the heavy thing.”

Something groaned above him, making a terrible noise as it moved over the wood floor. Dick pushed on the door, but it wouldn’t open.

“I think you have to pull,” Dick said. “On the count of three. One. Two. Three!”

Dick shoved his forearm up into the door and it popped open with no resistance.

“Hey! We did i--”

No one was there.

“Red Hood?” Dick called. His voice echoed through the room.

He climbed back up into the kitchen and closed the trapdoor. He was definitely alone.

Dick started humming again, this time out of nervousness, and carefully walked out of the room.

* * *

Jason had tried, by his count, seventeen different ways of getting out, and not one of them had worked.

He was just about ready to shoot the damn thing open, when the door slid back of its own accord.

Dick must’ve finally found him. In fact, it had to be Dick, because Jason could hear him humming his damn little song.

“I swear, if you’ve been down there this whole time,” Jason said, climbing down the steps. “I’m gonna--”

Dick wasn’t there.

No one was there.

“Really living up to your name there, Nightwing,” he said, loud enough to be heard down the hall.

There was no reply.

OK. Jason was _done_ with this house.

He found Dick--actual, really, one hundred percent the true Dick Grayson--in the foyer.

“What took you so long?” Jason said. “Felt like I was stuck in there for hours!”

“You were stuck?” Dick said. “I was trapped in the cellar for ages!”

Jason opened his mouth to reply when a voice came from behind them.

_“Don’t be here when the morning comes.”_

Dick and Jason met each other’s eyes and headed out towards the door.

They didn’t stop running until they reached the property gate.

Batman suddenly broke in on their comms. “Nightwing. Red Hood. Where have you been?”

“Wild goose chase of a robbery at the Finger place,” Jason said.

“What?”

“Came over the scanner about three,” Dick said. “Robbery at Finger mansion. I said we’d handle it.”

There was a long pause at the other end of their line.

“There is no Finger mansion anymore,” Batman said. “It was torn down when you were Robin.”

“It what?”

Jason and Dick had their backs to the house. Now, they slowly turned around.

Where the house had stood was nothing more than a few bricks in a swamp. Only the gate remained around it.

“Where have you two been?” Batman asked again. “You failed to report in on the hour.”

“Which hour would that be?” Jason asked.

“Three.”

Dick forced a chuckle, then looked at Jason.

Jason looked sideways at Dick.

They turned their backs on the swamp and marched stiffly back to their bikes.

“Would you believe we’ve been trapped in a haunted house?” Dick asked.

Batman sighed. “That better not be a euphemism for something. Check in at four. Batman out.”

They didn’t say a word as they headed back to Gotham proper, both a little more shaken than they cared to admit. They met up with Tim and Damian for an end of patrol snack.

“So, where were you, really?” Tim asked, once they’d sat down to eat.

“You wouldn’t believe us if we told you,” Jason said.

“There are no such things as haunted houses,” Damian said.

“Oh, you of little faith,” Dick said, ruffling Damian’s hair. “‘More things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio’.” He glanced at Jason. “...Especially in Gotham."


End file.
